The computer model that nailed the NFL's 2017 season has made its picks for Week 3

The computer models are back making their picks for the
2018 NFL season.

In 2017, Microsoft's Cortana correctly picked 68% of
the games overall and 75% of the games over the final ten
weeks.

FiveThirtyEight's Elo also had a strong showing during
the regular season, correctly picking 64% of the
games.

Week 3 of the NFL season is here, and
Microsoft's Cortana is back to make picks in a head-to-head
showdown with Elo.

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We took a look at two popular systems used to pick NFL games:
Cortana,
Microsoft's digital assistant, and Elo, the modeling system used
by Nate Silver's
FiveThirtyEight. In both cases, the computers are picking
outright winners and not against the spread. However, each gives
a likelihood of a team's winning, which, in theory, could help
measure the strength of certain lines.

Cortana won the regular season matchup last season, going 162-78
(68%) overall, and 111-38 (75%) over the last ten weeks (we did
not track Week 17 because of the wonky nature of the final week).
Elo was not far behind, going 154-86 (64%) overall.

Cortana is off to a strong start in 2018, going 10-5-1 in Week 2.
Elo struggled, going 7-8-1.

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Here are the picks for Week 3, with each model's percent chance
of winning in parentheses. Point spreads are just for reference,
via Vegas Insider as of Thursday morning.